Dissident Voice

June
5, 2003

Here's
what we know so far about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction: of the
600 or so sites identified by United States intelligence and Iraqi officials as
places where the country's biological weapons may be hidden, about 100 of these
sites have been searched over the past six weeks and not a single speck of
anthrax or other WMD has been uncovered.

Two
skeletal trailers that may have been used to develop anthrax or botulism,
scrubbed from top to bottom when it was found, leaving no biological weapons
traces behind, according to the Department of Defense, is the only evidence the
U.S. has found so far to justify its preemptive strike against Iraq. But this
is far from a "smoking gun" and the prospects for finding any WMD in
the months ahead are becoming grim.

The
media is pestering U.S. military officials in Iraq on why WMD haven't been
found yet. The responses are short and to the point.

"I
honestly don't know," said Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for
U.S. intelligence, during a briefing May 30.

Prior
to the war, nearly every major media outlet warned, based on reports from the
Pentagon, that Iraq's cache of chemical and biological weapons could be used on
U.S. and British troops sent into Iraq to destroy Saddam Hussein's regime.

To
back up these claims, President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
said Saddam's history of using WMD on his own people and in the war the country
fought against Iran was evidence of the viciousness of the dictatorship. So are
we to believe that Saddam suddenly got a dose of humanity, opting instead to
let his regime be torn apart rather than go out in a blaze of glory? Or could
it be that Iraq either destroyed its WMD or never had anything substantial to
begin with?

Looking
back at the events that led up to the war, it's likely the latter. The Bush
administration never presented the proof to the United Nations that its
intelligence suggesting Iraq was developing chemical and biological weapons was
superior to that of the U.N. weapons inspectors who actually combed through the
country looking for stockpiles of anthrax, botulism or VX. Now the military,
which has taken over inspections, are finding exactly what U.N. weapons
inspectors found – nothing. Even Al Capone's safe had a couple of empty bottles
of liquor in it when Geraldo Rivera opened it up twenty years ago.

In
October 2002, President Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati and spoke about the
imminent threat Iraq posed to the U.S. because of the country's alleged ties
with al-Qaeda and its endless supply of chemical and biological weapons:

"Surveillance
photos reveal that the (Iraqi) regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used
to produce chemical and biological weapons," Bush said. "Iraq
possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles – far
enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other nations – in a region
where more than 135,000 American civilians and service members live and work.
We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of
manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or
biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring
ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States. And, of
course, sophisticated delivery systems aren't required for a chemical or
biological attack; all that might be required are a small container and one
terrorist or Iraqi intelligence operative to deliver it."

None
of this intelligence information has ever panned out, according to dozens of
news reports over the past five months. Most notably, according to the
International Atomic Energy Agency, Bush erred when he said last year that Iraq
was six months away from developing a nuclear weapon. Furthermore, the
president's claims that thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes sought by
Iraq were intended for a secret nuclear weapons program were also incorrect.

Bush
said last September in a speech that attempts by Iraq to acquire the tubes
point to a clandestine program to make enriched uranium for nuclear bombs. But
experts contradicted Bush, saying that the evidence is ambiguous.

The
report, from the Institute for Science and International Security, a copy of
which was acquired by the Washington Post, "also contends that the Bush
administration is trying to quiet dissent among its own analysts over how to
interpret the evidence."

David
Albright, a physicist who investigated Iraq's nuclear weapons program following
the 1991 Persian Gulf War as a member of the International Atomic Energy
Agency's inspection team, the Post
reported, authored the report.

The
Institute, headquartered in Washington, is an independent group that studies
nuclear and other security issues."

"By
themselves, these attempted procurements are not evidence that Iraq is in
possession of, or close to possessing, nuclear weapons," the report said,
according to the Post story. "They do not provide evidence that Iraq has
an operating centrifuge plant or when such a plant could be operational."

The
lack of evidence and public blunders by other high-ranking officials in the
Bush administration is endless.

Secretary
of State Colin Powell made it clear in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street
Journal on February 3, a day before his famous meeting at the U.N. where he
presented "evidence" of an Iraqi weapons program, which turned out to
be the empty trailers the U.S. military found earlier this month, that there
was no "smoking gun":

"While
there will be no 'smoking gun,' we will provide evidence concerning the weapons
programs that Iraq is working so hard to hide," Powell said in his op-ed.
"We will, in sum, offer a straightforward, sober and compelling
demonstration that Saddam is concealing the evidence of his weapons of mass
destruction, while preserving the weapons themselves."

However,
Powell did no such thing. Instead, Powell held up a small vial of anthrax at
the U.N. meeting to illustrate how deadly just a small vial can be and then
used that to couch his claims that Iraq's alleged stockpile of anthrax would be
much deadlier.

The
same day, February 3, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer dodged a dozen
or so questions about the intelligence information from sources in Iraq and
from the CIA that showed, without any doubt, that Iraq possessed WMD.

"I
think the reason that we know Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological
weapons is from a wide variety of means. That's how we know," Fleischer
said.

In
virtually every press briefing (archived on the White House's
web site), and every speech by President Bush between January and the days
leading up to the war in March, hundreds of questions were directed at Bush
during stakeouts and Fleischer at his press briefings about what intelligence
information the U.S. had that could be declassified to support its allegations
that Iraq was either developing WMD or was hiding them. However, not a single
shred of proof was offered up by the White House to back up its claims.

Moreover,
when the White House finally seized on something tangible prior to the war,
such as the existence of long-range missiles, Iraq started destroying the
weapons in the presence of U.N. inspectors. But at this point war with Iraq was
inevitable.

In
an interview with "Meet the Press" on February 9, Tim Russert, the
program's host, asked Powell about one of the alleged WMD sites Powell spoke
about at a U.N. meeting the week before. Russert asked Powell if the U.S. knew
where certain weapons in Iraq were being stored why not just send the U.N.
inspectors in or destroy the facility rather than go to war?

Powell's
response is poignant:

"Well,
the inspectors eventually did go there, and by the time they got there, they
were no longer active chemical bunkers."

To
suggest today, nearly three months after the war in Iraq started, whether there
may have been an intelligence failure now that WMD have yet to be found is to
suggest there was some sort of intelligence in the first place.

Besides,
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz both said publicly during interviews last week that the war in Iraq
was planned two days after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, well before the issue of
WMD was ever discussed by the Bush administration.

Jason Leopold, formerly the
bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires, is a freelance journalist based in
California. He is currently finishing a book on the California energy crisis.
He can be contacted at jasonleopold@hotmail.com.